Council leader unsure about merged councils concept

Oxfordshire County Council's leader says its devolution proposal may not include a mayor

A council leader has expressed doubts about the idea of merging councils in response to the government's call for devolved local powers.

Oxfordshire County Council leader Liz Leffman said the authority would inform the new Labour government of the extra powers it would like before the September deadline.

Speaking on BBC Politics South, she said it was not "quite clear" if its proposal would include a mayor.

She said merging councils into a larger combined authority would not work in the same way for county shires as it did for metropolitan counties.

Ms Leffman said combined authorities did not work in county shires in the same way as in metropolitan counties

Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, already have elected mayors with control over matters such as housing, skills and transport.

Ms Leffman said: "At the moment, I think for a lot of shires, that's {having a mayor] actually quite difficult," she said.

She said the previous government had recognised it as an issue.

"In fact, it [the Conservative government] got seven of us together at one point, just before the election, to talk about giving level 2 devolution powers to us," she said.

Level 2 powers offer county councils or combined authorities, without a directly elected mayor, control over the adult education budget, local enterprise partnerships functions and the UK shared prosperity fund.

Ms Leffman said "putting county shires into some kind of combined authority doesn't necessarily work in quite the same way as it does in a place like Birmingham or Manchester".

While she was "very much in favour" of having more powers devolved, she said "the money has to come with it".

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, said in her letter to local leaders - the next steps to devolution​ - that the government understood the pressure many councils were under and would ensure they “have the resources to deliver new devolved powers and functions”.